


Like Purity Against Resolve

by hummingrightalong



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Daryl Dixon, Child Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Daryl Dixon & Carol Peletier Friendship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Rickyl, Scars, Sexual Abuse, Trigger Warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-27 22:15:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16711042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hummingrightalong/pseuds/hummingrightalong
Summary: Daryl's childhood was rough- there's no one that should be surprised by this. Rated for child abuse.





	Like Purity Against Resolve

Rick is careful not to stare. Not that Daryl can see him. 

Not that he probably wouldn’t just spill if the former deputy asked.

He’d rather not admit to it, to the shame he felt, the guilt. Daryl may have loved to tell stories, but some of them had to be kept between family.

***

Merle pushing his father back, still too young to be going round for round with the guy himself, even years on his baby brother that the memories should be fuzzy. But they’re fucking crystal.

Will Dixon laughing, daring, swinging at first with fists, until his eldest was on the ground. At first Merle had played tough, before he got there. Before he got there and then grew into the man that was well past tough. Cruel, a product of their dear old dad. Desperate.

The eldest son took a lot of beatings, stood older and back then so much bigger than the ginger haired child with his clear blue eyes and soft face. Daddy didn’t like that. But he loved the way Merle fought back, the way he first picked up a bottle to hurl at him, then to swallow down before he broke it in his own two hands and slashed at the old bastard.

Somehow Mr. Dixon, the old drunk, who everybody would’ve known about if they’d been from one of those places where neighbors were close enough to watch. 

Up in the mountains of Northern Georgia, no one ever even heard them. The screaming, the furniture overturned and what was left of the curtains once used to strangle the eldest sibling. That’d been the first time he cried. The first night he knew that the old man wasn’t past taking a life. His.

Every time after that he’d cried, all the while telling little Daryl it’d be alright. All the while Will was promising he’d be through Merle in no time and come for him. That was still when the heavens and earth couldn’t move the older boy out of the way. When he still believed that their father would never touch the kid. 

It meant something then to him, and maybe it never stopped meaning something to him. After all, Daryl barely would’ve had the reassure of a stable hand for a baby bottle when he was first born. Who knew who his mother was (surely wasn’t the same as Merle’s- women didn’t stick around long for the Dixons in any respect). She obviously- SOMEHOW- gave even less of a damn than mean old Mr. Dixon did.

Then the drugs got ahold of big brother. That took Merle away a lot, for different reasons. Juvie, then jail, whoring around in between. Court appointed rehab, ‘volunteer’ work to make up for his sins. 

Forgetting where the fuck he was at all on a bender was a common affair, until his little brother tracked him any way he could and dragged him home. Once to a hospital but he’d been read the riot act by both the elder Dixons on that- you didn’t involve the government where family was concerned.

Whenever he was gone Daryl couldn’t wait to get him back. Because he really cared about him, knew he felt the same. It wasn’t the protection he was looking for; he’d always known that someday, any day, as soon as Merle wasn’t looking Daddy would be going for him. And going hard. 

Somehow in his daze Merle had never had any idea- at least he had seemed to be telling himself that the day he finally got a good look at the deep dark raised scars on Daryl’s back. They were random, fueled by anger, but there’d been enough that it had been a habit on Will’s part at least. And the intent to keep the injury under the clothes said plenty.

Of course, in protecting Daryl, Merle had made his fair share of mistakes. When they were younger he’d been tough on him- ‘pussy’ ‘loser’ ‘weirdo’ the list of put downs and his own special brand of delivering the cruel words to toughen him up did exactly that. 

Daryl never once cried out- not at the fists, the lashes, anything his father gave to him.

And hell, he was *willing* to pay the price when they were older and his big brother who loved him so much was hurting after going just a few hours without his drug of choice. Meth changed a guy, and it changed the crowd he hung out with. Not that their father’s friends weren’t also a bunch of racist, illegal, meth cooking, backwards rednecks that had no problem whatsoever with taking a young man who was just this side of...well, ‘pretty’ to pay a debt owed. 

Daryl didn’t mind doing it for Merle though, and even told himself that the scars that weren’t from their father went unnoticed because of all the drugs Merle was taking.

He still loved him, he did, and it took so long to start blaming him- especially to his face- when his efforts just *weren’t enough*, that of the two it was Daryl always getting the short straw.

***

Eventually, all this sort of thing comes out in bits and pieces. To Rick at least...Carol sometimes when Daryl really allowed himself to think he’d also been cheated out of that motherly affection.

She comforts him, is honest and straightforward as always and tells him he’s got every right to feel like the world owed him because it did. He just wants to help. To do the best he can. To save people. Make sure one less child, one less person (he never really felt like he’d grown out of childhood and he knew other people said the same) got lost.

Rick just marvels over how kind Daryl is, how gentle, and tells him until he believes it too.

“You’re a better man than the ones that made you. And damn well a better father to my kids than I’ve ever been.”

“You’re a fucking good father, Ricky.”

“You’re better,” Rick smiles, watching Judith drift off to sleep in Daryl’s cautious but so very safe arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by "Your Rocky Spine" by Great Lake Swimmers


End file.
